


Necessary Pebbles

by Munnin, yakalskovich



Series: Necessary Pebbles verse [7]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: M/M, discussion of philosophy, the force is with them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-01
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-09-21 08:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9539720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Munnin/pseuds/Munnin, https://archiveofourown.org/users/yakalskovich/pseuds/yakalskovich
Summary: The morning after their first time, Galen and Bodhi get to talking about their lives, their pasts. Certain connections are made that shake them both.





	

Bodhi couldn’t help but get up and fiddle. He had slept so much since the accident, he found it hard to stay still for too long. Even if holding Galen in the afterglow had been magnificent. Instead, he investigated Galen's little kitchenette, seeing what he might have to work with. He was starving!

The food was basic, but very good -- bread, eggs, oil; caf, rice, nuts. But in the cold section, there was some actual fresh fruit and vegetables, and some wrapped-up dark meat. Also, a small unopened set of spices that looked costly and imported, like a core world version of rim world spices.

"Did you lay this in for me?" Bodhi asked the sleepy Galen, investigating the spices. He opened a couple and sniffed them, humming happily. "Last time I was here I seem to recall your kitchen having less food than the crumbs under a pilot's bunk."

"Hmmm," Galen said from the bed. "Wanted to do better. Have my life ready for you.'

Bodhi's heart clenched and he has to braced his hands on the bench to steady himself. He moved back to the bed, kneeling down next to Galen. He brushed Galen's hair back from his face, kissing his sleepy cheek very softly. There was a haze of tears in his eyes. No-one had ever done anything like that for him before, made a place for him like that.

"Are the spices all right?" Galen asked, lifting his head far enough to return those kisses. "Bodhi?" He lifted a still languid hand to touch Bodhi's eyelashes, as if marvelling at this reaction.

"Galen. I-" Bodhi swallowed around the lump in his throat. "Thank you." It wasn’t big enough. Words weren’t big enough for how grateful he was. How much this meant to him.

Galen put his finger to Bodhi’s lips, then reached for that back of Bodhi's neck to pull him close again and lovingly kissed him. Bodhi leant into it, trying not to cry. Stars, Galen just broke him, every time. He broke the kiss, resting his forehead against Galen's. "You're incredible. And I'm making us omelettes.”

Galen softly chuckled at that. "You're just as incredible," he said. "Food, in my kitchen! Is there enough salt and spatulas and wherever else you need?"

"Salt and spatulas." Bodhi snorted warmly, kissing Galen again. "You really are hopeless." He got up with care, feeling his burns pull and tried to hide a grimace. "I have everything I need." 

A lover who loved him back. It was more than he could ever have hoped for.

Bodhi smiled again and stroked Galen's hair with a lingering touch before going back to the kitchen, investigating the vegetables with interest and sniffing the dark meat. What he needed was a really sharp knife.

"I'm no longer hopeless," Galen said. "I have you. You know about all those things in there."

There was a drawer newly filled with implements and cutlery, including a basic set of good kitchen knives, and a few overly specific tools meant to deal with vegetables or seafood they don't even have. Bodhi chuckled, testing the edge of a knife. Sharp enough. He unwrapped the meat and starts shaving very fine slithers off it with a steady hand. "You mail ordered all of this, didn't you?" He teased, gesturing with a utensil he’d never seen before. Some Core World specialty thing he'd never had cause to need. "I don't even know what this is for." 

Concentrating on the joy of cooking, Bodhi set about marinating the thin strips of meat in a bowl of oil, adding a pinch of a couple of spices, breathing in the unique fragrances. At some time during this process, Galen got up from bed, wrapped a ratty robe half-heartedly around himself, and leaned in the jamb of the doorless opening to the kitchen and just watched the process and inhaled the scents, an alert and fascinated presence behind Bodhi.

Bodhi cooked with the unconscious sensuality of someone enjoying themselves greatly. He was different when cooking, more comfortable in his own skin perhaps, burned and scarred as it was. He chopped some green bean-like vegetables fine, chomping on one raw just to enjoy the crunch. He offered one to Galen, pulling down mugs to make some caf.

Galen took the vegetable and crunched down on it. "I didn't know you could eat them raw," he said.

"Only when they're fresh." Bodhi warned "They keep well but after a week or so, they get to be too bitter to be eaten raw. I haven't had them for ages. My grandmother use to grow them on our roof." He savoured the peppery sweetness of the fresh bean. More vegetables and some form of fungus with an earthy scent which he cut fine and added to the marinating meat. "Do you mind readying the table once all this is in the pan, it won't take more than a minute."

"I have plates and bowls and everything," Galen said, squeezing past Bodhi in the tiny kitchen to get it from an upper cabinet. As he passed, he dropped a small kiss on Bodhi's shoulder.

"Practically domestic." Bodhi smiled, his breath catching at just that little touch of an almost careless show of affection. He couldn’t help but wonder if Galen knew how powerful effect he had on Bodhi.

"I'm trying to," Galen said, getting two plates from the cabinet. "It makes sense again." Passing back out the way he had come, he lingered a little longer, cheek pressed against Bodhi's hair. He sounded happy.

Bodhi leaned against him, lingering on the moment. "You'll have to show me how, Galen.” His voice was soft, unsure. “I've never done this before." 

"Domesticity?" Galen asked, still lingering. "It's easy, because people seem to be pack animals. And hard, because everybody is different in small ways."

Bodhi reached back to cup the back the back of Galen's head, holding him close. "I want this to work. For however long we have."

"So do I," Galen said. "We have about four standard weeks during which we can work out a way how to make a niche for us so this can work open-endedly."

Bodhi turned his head to catch Galen's lips in a kiss. "Thank you for understanding." He gave Galen a little nudge. "Now let me cook. Leave the plates, this won't take long." 

He threw everything together, hands moving swiftly as he cracked and scrambles the eggs. Again, that easy rhythm, that relaxed state that came from cooking. It didn’t take him long to have two very tasty omelettes on plates, bringing them to the table. "Breakfast."

The table was set neatly, and Galen was already at it, mug of caf in hand, apparently having watched Bodhi the entire time. Bodhi smiled and presented the plates, welcoming Galen to sit. "It feels like an age since the last time we ate together. I hope you enjoy this."

Galen sat, looking at the food with hopeful expectation. "So much happened in-between," he said.

"It did," Bodhi sat down carefully, all too aware of his damaged body. "The last time I cooked for you, I was only just realising." He gestured for Galen to eat and not to wait. Jedhean tradition encourages enjoyment in the meal, not formality.

Galen started to eat, happily tasting the good fresh food. "We hadn't even kissed or anything," he said "And now we are here."

Bodhi tasted the omelette, considered and reached for another spice, sprinkling a little over his plate. "I don't think I knew anyone could fall that fast."

"I don't think it works that way for most people," Galen said soberly while spearing the next bite of omelette with his fork. "The Force seems to have needed us to work and had no time to lose."

Bodhi cocked his head, looking to Galen. "You really believe that? That we're... fated? That there's a reason?"

"It feels so right and natural between us," Galen said, "So yes, I think we are."

Bodhi watched Galen for a long moment, thinking about that. He wanted to believe it. There was a little part left in his heart that wanted to feel what his mother and brothers felt - that there was something greater, something more, that the Force of Others somehow noticed him, that the huge uncaring universe have the smallest thought for Bodhi Rook. And he envied Galen that too. "I hope you're right. I want to think-" But in his heart, he doubted. Not Galen, not this strange and sudden love, but himself.

Galen tilted his head and looked at Bodhi.

"It's nothing." Bodhi shook his head. "How do you like the omelette?" he deflected desperately.

Galen gave him a deep look."You don't like to think the Force works for you?" He asked gently. "Perhaps, after everything that changed in the last few years, it has been found to not be real?" Galen had a point in asking; after all, the Empire tried to deny the 'Jedi religion' even as it excoriated Jedha for the very kyber crystals that used to power the lightsabers, something they both knew to be deeply schizophrenic.

Bodhi chased a bite of food around his place. "It's not that." He cleared his throat, trying to order his thoughts. "I've never... had faith, not the way some of my family do. Not because I don't believe it's real. I've seen the Guardians do things that... I can't explain. I just..." He put the fork down, aware that there's no way to say this without sounding self pitying. "If there is a Force, I'm not important enough for it. I'm just- I'm no-one." He closed his eyes. "And after what I've done, helping the Empire destroy the temple, why would it do anything good for me?"

Galen listened quietly while Bodhi spoke. "The Force isn't personal," he said. "It's the thread that connects all beings in the universe. You exist, so do the stars. Nothing is too unimportant for the Force. Touching it, working with it, seeing its patterns -- that is the talent and privilege of the Jedi, the Guardians and their like. But everybody is part of it, and is moved by it."

"Do you feel it? When you work with the crystals?" Bodhi didn't ask about Galen's work much as he was fairly sure there were things he didn't need to know. But Galen's... philosophical side fascinated him.

"Yes," Galen said. "You can't, if you don't. Still, it's a long way from wielding it."

"Tell me what you feel?" Bodhi asked softly, a mix of hope and awe in his voice.

"I feel the connection, the natural flow of reality," Galen explained. "An energy that slightly collapses time, which means a path from the past to the future and back. I had that with Lyra; and now, I clearly feel that I have that with you."

Bodhi reached across the table to touch Galen's hand lightly. He wanted to believe that, with all his heart. "What was she like? Lyra." He ducked his head. "I want you to know, I'm not- I won't ever be jealous of her, of you. I want to know all of you."

"Infinitely more practical and sensible than me," Galen said. "A geologist. Explorer. Surveyor. Guide. At home in worlds like these. She made my blood sing and ordered my world. We sometimes argued, of course, but there was a secret pleasure in giving in to her better sense."

He ate a piece of omelette, thinking.

"Old friends kept telling me in strict confidence that she wasn't beautiful, that she was plain and unrefined, but they must all have been blind."

Bodhi stroked his fingers over Galen's inner wrist, listening. Just listening. "Beauty isn't in looks. You're not... that's not the way you see things." Otherwise, why would he notice Bodhi?

"Beauty is in the energy, hers or yours," Galen said. "It's in the way you touch the Force and me. Then, the way you look becomes the most precious thing in the world, and you focus me."

"I would have thought I'd be a distraction, the way I've taken you from your work."

"No," Galen said. "You make the world find coherence again, now you are here. And you are very beautiful."

Bodhi shook his head and leaned across the table, kissing Galen softly. He didn’t have the words, he never had. Not for the way Galen made him feel. Valued, special; worthy. He settled back into his chair. "Will you tell me how you met?"

"Working," Galen said. "She worked in a team that had surveyed caves on Espinar where I went with another group of scientists because there were crystals there which we thought might be similar to kyber. In the end, though, they weren't."

"But you connected?" Bodhi asked softly. And then pulled back a little. "Don't... don't let me push you, if you don't want to talk about it."

Galen closed his fingers around Bodhi's hand. “'No, I want to. And yes, we connected. No great fuss or drama: we came back from that expedition and were one, and made our plans and moves together after that. She was so beautiful to me -- strong and stern and regal in her solid boots and large warm coat, queen of all she surveyed."

He smiled -- a fond pun, and a terrible one.

Bodhi can't help but smile. The pun is awful and adorable at the same time. "It's wonderful, that love happened so fast and so completely." He rubbed his fingers over Galen's knuckles. "Twice."

"Oh yes," Galen said. "Twice. Necessary to the flow of the universe each time. Nothing big, I don't claim that -- but necessary like a smooth pebble in a stream lying just so."

"Necessary pebbles." Bodhi echoed. That he could live with. He couldn’t see himself as more but as long as it means getting to be here, with Galen, he could accept that it was the will of the Force.

"There are millions of them, to one or two big dramatic rocks," Galen said, "but still, they make up the bed of the stream, and they must be there, each one."

"And in just the right place." Bodhi smiled, caressing Galen's hand. "Like we are now." He loved Galen's hands. The dichotomy of them. By all rights they should be smooth and soft but Galen's hands carried a history of far wider than a lab.

"Yes," Galen said. "Just so. So you see, it's not that strange that we fell so fast, or that Lyra and I did before. Just in the right place.

“It makes me wonder,” Bodhi said, “if I'd never been assigned here. If I'd never entered the academy, would we have still found each other?" Would he have ever known that he could feel like this?

"But you were, so you could be here," Galen said. "And I'm sure we would. You might have become a merchant, and I might have bought spices from you."

"Or a food vendor in some market town." Bodhi shrugged with a half smile. "If my grandmother had lived, that's what I would have become, I think."

"And there I would have found you, and come back again and again, for your food at first, then for your conversation, and then because I'd have fallen in love," Galen said.

Because they are meant to be.

Bodhi smiled, liking that thought. "Either way, I get to cook for you."

"You do," Galen said. "And I get to enjoy your cooking. And we get to share everything else."

"Everything I have to share. Past and future." Bodhi answered, almost as s promise. "Anything you want to know about me, just asks."

"The same goes for me," Galen said. "Never think anything is too painful, or too personal."

"I'd like to know about your life, before here. Before the Empire." Bodhi toyed with Galen's fingers, "These aren't the hands of a scientist."

Galen turned up his palms. There were scars in there. "The hands of an unskilled farmer," Galen explained as Bodhi traced the scars, "of an inept rock-climber, and of a father used to pulling his own weight in the household."

Bodhi traced them again, studying them, reading Galen's history in the creases and folds. "What did you farm?"

"Everything we needed," Galen said. "Subsistence farming, basically. It was bad times -- worse than even now -- and trade was often interrupted. So, no relying on cash crops."

"An outer rim world then?" Bodhi shook his head. "Don't tell me, if it would endanger you at all." He wasn’t sure how Galen came to be on Eadu, or what he still might have to hold in secret.

"Lah'mu," Galen said. "Just about as full of black stones as this place. Still, we managed to survive and thrive, and learn with time. It's amazing how things will just grow on their own if you provide the right conditions."

"And your child?" Bodhi frowned, trying to remember her name from their hazy conversations in the med-bay. "Jyn? She grew up there?"

"She did," Galen said. "She took to nature and the outdoors with the same unerring instinct as her mother."

“It must have been quite a playground, even in the hard times. I never had the gift for growing things. My grandmother had that. And Jedha isn't a good place for outdoors."

"Depending on what you wear, and what you want to do outside," Galen said. "Lyra always stuck with the old adage that there is no bad weather, only the wrong clothes. But she never came to this place, or it might have proven her wrong at last. It's worse than Hoth, in a way."

Bodhi smiled warmly. "At least you never want for water. I only saw the Jedha rains twice in my life. But I'm sure you miss the sun."

"I do," Galen said, "but I am told this system actually has one -- otherwise, survival would be harder than necessary."

"It's in planet shadow for most the time." Bodhi nodded, able to see the movement of the system clearly in his head. Solo navigation would do that to you. "A red star, warm but not overly bright. Flying out in the gravitational window, it always catches over the planet horizon, like flare going off."

"It must be beautiful," Galen said, "if a bit impractical for anything to actually live here independently."

"It is, if you're ready for it. It can be blinding and dangerous if you're not. But it's the safest way to make orbit."

"You have goggles for that?" Galen said.

"I've going to have to get a new pair." Bodhi sighed, "Mine were trashed in the fire."

"Good thing they didn't melt on your face," Galen said. "That would have have hurt even more."

"Oh no, they won't melt. You'd have to pour fuel in them directly to make them melt. There's a fail-safe in the lenses. Once triggered, they go black and stay that way; in theory, to protect the wearer's eyes from extreme flashes."

"But in practice," Galen said, "they keep you from seeing what the problem is, thus making sure you can't deal with it in an effective manner?"

"Right. And they're useful for lots of things - like keeping smoke out of your eyes in the clean up."

"If you survive the visual blackout to even start cleaning up," Galen nodded. "Whoever thought of such a thing?"

"Imperial standard equipment." Bodhi shrugged. "I guess they expect to be able to throw them out and requisition a new pair straight away. Or just stroll up to a supply cupboard." No-one in command thought about conditions on the rim. "They're still very far away from the idea of the well-ordered empire where not one single combat boot gets lost," Galen said, smiling.

"And every research outpost has all the medical supplies it needs." Bodhi gave Galen a worried look. "The doctor says you gave up your bacta for me."

"I didn't need it," Galen pointed out, "and you did. I had to re-prioritise for her a little. Not that she needed much prodding. She is good people."

"You know, in all the time she was caring for me, I never thought to ask her name." Bodhi mused, feeling foolish. "I should cook her something, to thank her."

"I think she might like that," Galen said. "Especially as she has realised about us so we won't have to try and be careful."

Bodhi nodded, his eyes a little distant as he considers a menu already. He stroked Galen's knuckles almost absently, loving the feel of the raised scars and muscles. "You said you were a rock climber?"

"Had to be, on the worlds where I lived," Galen said. "Lyra was much better at it than I. Why?"

"I use to climb when I was younger. Jedha City is on the top of a rather steep promontory. I haven't climbed in years."

"I'm sure you still can," Galen said. "Is there any place you'd like to climb to?"

"There one spot back on Jedha but I don't know that I'll ever get the chance." He ducked his head. "Things there are getting worse. But, at least I know my brothers are alive. For now. We had a fight, just before I flew back in this run." With the explosion it had all but slipped his mind.

"So it wasn't their blood on that crate," Galen said, "How did you run into them?"

Bodhi shook his head. "One of their friends. A boy I knew." He sighed, "I went looking for them. I had a rotation's leave and wanted- I needed to know for sure. They... weren't happy to see me."

"I'm glad you made it out again," Galen said. He stroked the back of Bodhi's hand with his thumb.

"It wasn't my brothers who cut the deepest." Bodhi breathed. "It was my mother."

He shook it off, trying to push that conversation to the back of his mind. There's a reason he was raised by his grandmother. "Things on Jedha are getting worse. Shipments are being attacked, haulers bombed. There's talk some big name Rebel has set up a base there. I heard chatter a Star Destroyer's being reallocated to loom over the city." He gave a shrug, as if trying to make light of it. "Half the people will be glad of the shade."

"They will miss the light," Galen said, grimly. "It's very painful to see a world treated like that. Which is why..."

"The Jedhean sun isn't always friendly. My sisters inherited my grandmother's light colouring. It was one of the reasons I worked so hard to get them off world. The SolJedha may be cold, but it burns harshly." He cocked his head. It wasn’t like Galen to trail off like that. At least in his experience. "Why...?"

Galen closed his eyes, and shook his head.

_Not yet, not here._

"I know Jeddha," he said finally. "I've been a few times, with Lyra. It was still free then."

"Galen, look at me. Please?" Bodhi waited till he had Galen's eyes. "I understand. I understand you can't talk about your work. I get that there's a lot that goes on here that I can't know about. And I'm okay with that. I don't want you to ever feel like you're lying to me or anything, because there's stuff you can't tell me." He rubbed his thumb over Galen's knuckles. "I love you. And I trust you."

Galen looked at him, his maroon eyes infinitely sad, and infinitely happy with love at the same time. "I love you," he said. "And I trust you. I will trust you with my life on the other end of a rope on the rocks out there, too. As you wanted to try."

"I'd like that, if you would. The doc mentioned that getting out in the air would do me good. If it ever stops raining here, even for an hour." Bodhi cocked his head. "What was Jedha like, when you visited? I've always thought the view must be very different for pilgrims compared to the people who live there."

"Completely," Galen said. "It was bright dust and a wild flurry of people interspaced with scarlet robes, and faces that seemed to have seen millennia, and then of course the kyber crystals. I first came to study them."

"The temple. I use to love sitting outside and watching people’’s dazed expression when they came out. The way it seemed to freak them out."

"It changed both of us," Galen said. "With bitter irony, I realise that I couldn't do the work I am doing without those experiences."

"Without having see what they were, before they were taken away?"

"Without having seen and felt the Force at work, there," Galen said. "This entire endeavour seems to be fuelled by bitter irony and total disrespect for the Force as much as the actual kyber."

"I never felt it." Bodhi shook his head. "My mother, she dragged us in there as often as she could but... I never felt the thing that changed the pilgrims. I don't think she did either but she would never had admitted it." He squeezed Galen's hand. "You still feel it. That means you must still be doing something right."

"The Force doesn't tell right from wrong," Galen said. "Even Darth Vader, the Empire's Sith lord, still uses it. It exists, never judging."

And therein lay the difference between the truth of the Force and the religious rhetoric Bodhi had grown up with. "Half the stories I've heard about Darth Vader make me doubt he's real."

"He is," Galen said.

"I don't know if that's reassuring or terrifying." Bodhi admitted.

"Terrifying," Galen stated. "He is."

"I'm not going to ask. I don't think either of us wants to talk about that scary individual." He squeezed Galen's hand again. "Tell me about you? Do you have any brothers or sisters? Where did you grow up? I feel like I've done nothing but complain about my family but I know very little about yours."

"I'm an only child, and my parents were ordinary people from the planet Grange," Galen said. "My mother was a teacher, and she recognised early on that I was clever and made sure I had all the input my growing mind needed. I kept winning science fairs as a kid, and finally ended up getting fast-tracked to a very good education through programs of the old republic."

"Before everything went wrong." Before Bodhi's time. A slight reminder of the age gap between them. "It's a good thing. She wanted the best for you."

"And she got it," Galen said. "They both died in the wars, when the fighting happened to brush by Grange. Krennic took me to see it, in order to make me want to work for him."

The Jedhean curse that slipped through Bodhi's clenched teeth would have earned him a beating from his grandmother. "What is it with that man?"

"He never got over the fact that I said no to him," Galen said. "He kept badgering me through much of my life, for this thing or that."

"You and he-" Bodhi asked, the sentence hanging in the air. A jealous ex could be even more dangerous than a vindictive commander.

"Never," Galen said, "But in hindsight, I think he may have wanted me. I openly said no to all his schemes to advance, his job proposals, his grandiose ideas because I was just not interested. I might not even have noticed what may have been his advances, when we were students. I later puzzled that out with Lyra."

"Oh right." Bodhi’s not jealous, just worried. "What little I've seen of him up close, he doesn't strike me as a man use to being told no." 

Hence the obsession probably.

"He most definitely is not," Galen said. "He even had Lyra killed, just to make me do his bidding."

Bodhi felt his heart break for Galen. "Galen, I'm sorry. I knew she'd died. I didn't realise- it must be hell for you. How- how can I help?"

"Be with me," Galen said. "And maybe keep your eyes open for my Jyn, out there."

Bodhi got up and moved around the table to pull Galen into his arms. "Gladly."

Galen held him close and buried his face Bodhi's chest. "There is hope again, now you are there."

Bodhi whispered a soft endearment in Galen’s ear, holding him fiercely. "Tell me everything about her, Galen. Let me help you find her again."

"Fierce, unstoppable, fast and trustworthy," Galen said. "She answers fast and has a great sense of humour. She could make me laugh even in bad times, but she always knew when things got serious. She was a kid when I last saw her, but she can't have changed that much. Not even being raised by Saw."

"Saw?" Bodhi drew back a little to look Galen in the eyes. "Saw Gerrera?"

"You heard about him?"

"I've heard of him, yes. From what I've heard, he's the rebel leader on Jedha. The one leading the raids on the shipments." 

Bodhi’s lips thinned. "He's the one my brothers are---”

Galen just gaped at him, wordlessly. Then, slowly, he started to smile.

Bodhi didn’t quite follow the smile. “This is a good thing?”

"I entrusted my Jyn to him," Galen said. "And there he is again, the man your brothers are fighting the Empire with. Of all the billions and gazillions of people in the galaxy, you have a direct line to her."

Pause.

"Necessary pebbles. I was right."

Bodhi still didn’t seem so sure. "I'm not sure I'd call it a direct line. I'm not exactly... on good terms with my brothers right now." 

"They are your brothers, and they are alive," Galen said. "I call that a direct line, even peppered with resentment. Even factoring in the connection through your cargo and its source, the odds are ridiculously low."

"Pebbles in the stream." Bodhi nodded, trying to keep a note of sadness out of his voice. Just a means to an end. Nothing more.

Galen still seemed to pick up on it. "Being meant," Galen said, "being paired by the Force like dolls smashed together by a child playing at weddings, that is not necessarily a romantic or pleasant notion. It makes me feel humble and small. But I trust that it will be right; and in addition, we get each other and these wonderful human and personal feelings. Not even realising how small a relay in the whole machine we are can take that away."

Bodhi touched Galen's cheek softly before stepping away. He needed a moment. Just a moment to catch his breath. To clear his head. He wanted to believe. Wanted to believe that he and Galen loved each other, were right for each other. The thought that all of this was because the Force wanted it made him doubt himself. Perhaps he didn’t deserve love, he was just a pebble the river needed to move.

"To know this beyond a shadow of doubt is not nice at all," Galen said softly, behind him.

Bodhi shook his head, still silent. He took a deep breath and turned around to face Galen. His eyes were sad, dark, and heavy as he cupped Galen's cheek. "It's not you I doubt, Galen."

"Yourself?" Galen said, softly. Bodhi lowered his eyes, unable to deny it. Galen quietly held out both his hands for Bodhi's. He hesitated a moment before taking them, his eyes still low. Galen stroked the back of Bodhi's hands with his thumbs and bent his head to touch his nose to Bodhi's. "I love you, so much," he said. "But love can't push away the rest of the universe."

Bodhi took a long moment to answer, his eyes closed as he leaned into Galen. "Then I guess we wait, and see what the universe wants of me." He didn’t mean to sound bitter but- He swallowed and lifted his eyes, kissing Galen's cheek softly. "I love you. I'm sorry. I'm just-" Tired of feeling like someone else's pawn.

Galen leaned into him, stroking his wrists, giving him the silence he needed.

"I love you, Galen. I really do. You're the first person who's ever made me feel-" He cut himself off again, his voice thick. Galen tilted up his chin to softly, slowly kiss Bodhi.

Bodhi accepted the kiss, taking a moment before he returned it equally. "I'm sorry." He ran a hand over Galen's cheek. "I just... I need to go. I need to clear my head." He squeezed Galen's hand. "I'll be back. I just need-"

Time, space. Something.

Galen nodded. "Of course. I'll be here, and if not, comm me."

"I'm sorry." Bodhi hated this. Hated himself for this. He kissed Galen's cheek, lingering for a moment. "I'll come find you later." He pulled the robe a little tighter and headed for his own room across the hall.


End file.
